Thursday, February 28, 2013

Media Turns Against Obama's Sequester Narrative

The Overhyped, Overblown, & Overly Politicized Sequester Fears - Niraj Chokshi and Nancy Cook/National Journal

It turns out that the next big fiscal crisis will seem more like a whimper when it hits on March 1.

Let’s be clear about one thing: The across-the-board spending cuts known as the "sequester” aren’t a doomsday scenario, or a meteorite that will blow up the economy.

Teachers, FBI agents, and Border Patrol officers will not get fired tomorrow, when the sequester kicks in. The Internal Revenue Service will still be able to process your tax return in April. Preschool programs won't kick out 70,000 little kids until the fall, according to Education Secretary Arne Duncan—and that’s if the spending cuts stick. Unemployed people, arguably some of the worst-off of the lot, will not see their federal benefits reduced by 11 percent until April at the earliest, says the National Employment Law Project. This is roughly four weeks away, giving Congress and the White House time to act beyond the March 1 deadline that has been touted in headlines and press conferences for the past week.

The immediate impact of sequester is “absolutely overhyped,” says Steve Bell, senior director for economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former Republican staff director for the Senate Budget Committee. “A sequester will occur and, the next day, the likelihood is that almost no one will know that it started.”

The President's justified confidence in a media that long ago sold its soul on his behalf put him way out over his skis, and now, thanks to a few honest reporters, it's all tumbling down around him. - John Nolte/Breitbart

Over the past weeks, President Obama has been running around the country like Chicken Little spreading falsehoods about sequester, all in the hopes of blaming a 2% budget cut (which he proposed and signed into law) for an anemic economy that might be headed into a double-dip recession. Simply put, the White House and its media are pushing this fabricated Narrative in the hopes of shifting blame away from Obama's failed economic policies and onto the GOP and a lack of government largess.

President Obama’s Legacy: Government Greed - Bobby Jindal
It seems as if President Obama sends out another cabinet secretary every hour to tell the public about the dire consequences we will face if the sequestration cuts are not averted.

You’ve heard them — no vaccinations for children, teachers losing their jobs, less security from terrorist attacks, longer wait times at airports, and fewer food inspections. Now there are even reports that government officials are releasing hundreds of immigrants from deportation centers. What’s next? Is the president going to threaten to open the doors of federal prisons? This is silly....

Even after the sequestration reductions, the federal budget will actually be larger than it was last year. Let that one sink in. Only in Washington, D.C., would this be called a cut.